Cleveland wins praise as a 'sharing economy' standout

Cleveland is a standout in what's dubbed the “sharing economy:” a set of concepts in urban policy, from ridesharing to foodsharing, that Fast Company reports are “said to create jobs, attract young, educated residents, and boost a community's livability and sustainability to boot.”The magazine calls attention to a new report from Shareable.net and the San Francisco-based Sustainable Economies Law Center. Fast Company says the report “provides a 'policy primer' for urban leaders who want to bring the benefits of sharing home.”The report focuses on four core areas: transportation (including carsharing, ridesharing, and bikesharing); food (including urban agriculture, which is a form of landsharing, as well as farm shares); housing (including housing co-ops and tiny houses); and job creation, which the report defines as assisting small business startups within the sharing space as well as encouraging the formation of worker-owned cooperatives.It identifies six cities as particularly strong in these areas: Cleveland, Austin, Chicago, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.A reason Cleveland caught the report authors' attention: the Evergreen Cooperatives, a group of worker-owned businesses including a green laundry and a solar firm. The report notes the nation's “largest urban greenhouse serves local hospitals and universities.”

Somebody up there doesn't like me

Talking Points Memo reports that George Elmaraghy, a top watchdog at the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, “says he was forced to leave his job for running afoul of the coal industry and Gov. John Kasich.”Mr. Elmaraghy's story, on which the Ohio EPA and Gov. Kasich's office declined to comment, “suggests an administration beholden to the coal industry and willing to push out employees who weren't going to capitulate to its demands,” according to Talking Points Memo.It's a very long story, but here's the essence, from the website:

It started about nine months ago when coal companies came to the state EPA with plans for mining permits that Elmaraghy said would have violated rules set by the U.S. EPA. Elmaraghy reviewed those permits, one of his duties as the head of the surface water division.In conversations with the companies, he explained that the federal agency would likely reject the proposals because they violated federal law and encouraged the companies to alter their permit applications so they would be approved.The coal companies didn't like Elmaraghy's response and went straight to the governor's office roughly three months ago, he said. The governor's staff worked alongside the coal companies to craft a permit application that was more to their liking.Then on Aug. 9, Ohio EPA director Scott Nally told Elmaraghy that the governor's office wanted Elmaraghy, a 39-year veteran of the agency, gone. He would either resign by Sept. 13 or be fired.Mr. Elmaraghy, 66, “reluctantly accepted that offer,” according to Talking Points Memo, and his last day on the job was indeed Friday the 13th. Mr. Elmaraghy, who has hired an attorney, is appealing his resignation to the Ohio Personnel Board of Review.

Wise counsel

Nothing brightens someone's day like a smile — especially if you're a hospital patient and the smile comes from a caregiver.That's one tidbit you can glean from this Harvard Business Review blog post about improving patient experiences, written by James I. Merlino, a colorectal surgeon and chief experience officer at the Cleveland Clinic, and Ananth Raman, a professor of business logistics at Harvard Business School.Many hospitals, including the Clinic, “are implementing a variety of strategies to improve the patient experience — an issue that's rapidly becoming a top priority in health care,” they write. Health care reform “now links performance related to patient-experience metrics to reimbursement. For the first time, the pay of hospitals and eventually individual providers will be partly based on how they are rated by patients.”A 2012 industry survey asked top hospital leaders what was necessary to improve the patient experience. The top six recommendations: new facilities, private rooms, food on demand, bedside-interactive computers, unrestricted visiting hours, and more quiet time so patients could rest.

“There was one problem with them: They were not based on a systematic examination of what most patients really wanted,” according to the post. “In other words, hospital executives wanted to focus on what they felt were important drivers of the patient experience but didn't know for sure.”The post notes that the Clinic uses “Voice of the Patient Advisory Councils” to “ensure that the organization does not lose track of patients' needs.” The councils “have assisted with redesigning waiting rooms, providing advice on improving the admission guide, and helping managers better understand communication needs in the hospital.”One thing they found — “patients were more satisfied when they had caregivers who smiled more,” according to the post. “But when the Clinic dug deeper, it discovered that patients were not concerned about whether their caregivers had happy expressions per se; rather, they were concerned when doctors' and nurses' had stern expressions because they interpreted them to mean that caregivers were concealing problems from them. This caused anxiety and, as a result, adversely affected patient satisfaction.”

The gift was a hit

The Cleveland Indians have done a lot of things right this year on the field and off, and here's an example of the front office The Wall Street Journal offers a rundown of all the gifts New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera, a sure-fire Hall of Famer, has received from teams during his final year. Mr. Rivera “has collected bicycles, fishing poles, paintings, surfboards, wine, fire apparatus, cowboy gear and more. He has no idea what to do with all of it,” the story notes.One gift, though, has stood out. The Indians gave Mr. Rivera a gold record of his signature entrance music, Metallica's "Enter Sandman." He loves it."I've got a gold record, brother. Without even singing, I have a gold record," Mr. Rivera tells The Journal. "I think it was well done. Whoever thought of the idea of giving me a gold record with the song 'Sandman,' it was great. I appreciate that and I know it will have a special place in my house."You also can follow me on Twitter for more news about business and Northeast Ohio.

Morning Roundup

Business headlines from Crain's Cleveland Business and other Ohio newspapers — delivered FREE to your inbox every morning. Sign up for the Morning Newsletter.